Song of the Stones
by Servant of Fire
Summary: WARNING EXTREMELY SAD AU CONTENT. In which, John goes insane from grief after the R-fall, and Season 3 is actually an illusion he creates in his "Mind Asylum" a version of Sherlock's own, that he created to protect himself from uselessness, with insanity. In which Sherlock didn't survive after all, Mary was dead from the beginning, and Molly saves John's life.*Spoilers for S3*
1. Chapter 1 Sweet Music of Madness

**Song of the Stones~**

**Written for the characters of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes themselves. For John,because I know what it is to watch the "fall" of a friend. And for Sherlock , because I know what it is to be the one to fall.**

**In memory of a friendship that ended much too soon. Because I cared, for my part.**

**Chapter 1: Sweet Music of Madness**

She pushes back the doors of the old church. Stands there in her white lab coat, like a ghost, haunting beneath the great echoing eves of this massive building...

Nobody can hear the music. And so, they all say John is crazy now...And for the most part, that is true. He hasn't been right since the day Sherlock Holmes fell out of the sky,like angels are swept from the wind.

She has come to make it right, maybe...That will be harder to do than she realized, initially.

Sherlock has taught John just a little too well...

Everything that's happened to him in the last 3 years, has been a fabrication of his "mind palace".Created out of a need to survive, but having no purpose,( other than clinging to the ripped threads of a life Sherlock left when he tore throught the curtains of heaven), he went ,well...mad. PTSD flaring to levels no longer held back by the danger of Sherlock's life, that had kept John safe,from the creeping wolves of the mundane.

But the Shepherd had left London, for the sole purpose of keeping the Choice of His Flock safe. But he couldn't save John from the wolves of his own dark memory. And with Sherlock gone, one by one they came slinking back in.

And to protect himself, John put into practice everything Sherlock had ever taught him. Created his own mind-palace. A Kingdom of Madness that kept him safe from his fear of the ordinary,where soldiers fall like the wooden toys of Christmas, useful for nothing but the occasional festive decoration of patriotism (so some soldiers ,such as our doctor, have been made to feel,it seems).

It is to be understood from the beginning of our story, as tragic as it is, Sherlock Holmes _is _dead. He did not survive his fall. He is not coming back. He knew that Moriarty's people WOULD kill John, if he did not jump, if not because of the boss's orders, then to revenge his unnatural end. So,Sherlock unraveled his web in advance. All his business was done before St. Bart's rooftop(which is what gave rise to Moriarty's last act, that caused the need for said tragic Fall). Because actually Sherlock Holmes was far more clever than anybody had every dared believe. And he solved their cases, busted their ring, over the internet, never having to leave London...(well, he did leave, eventually, that is the object of the sorrow of our narrative...) He busted it all up, and then broke into his brother's study one night with a laptop that had a password only Mycroft would be able to guess,literally leaving it all on his desk. Left also the answer for everyone's "Why?"

Why?

To save John. Yes, 'Crazy John'. 'Batty-man' as he'd been dubbed.

The one that believed, and was convinced, and of course, was right, that his Sherlock would never lie...

The one that had grieved to the point of insanity, and went on grieving in his madness, having fabricated a situation where Sherlock came back on the night he was proposing to his" highschool" girlfriend,Mary Morstan(who herself was dead before our story began, having succumbed to leukemia in their ,as Americans(such as the author) would say, "senior year" of highshcool.

And now, now...Molly held her breath.

Now he had ,in his mind, convinced himself, Sherlock was here to be his best man. And that long -lost- love Mary was alive, and well, and that today was the day of their wedding. And that she would be the mother of his unborn(never-having-existed-to-be-born) child.

And he currently was dancing with an invisible bride, in the sanctuary of a long- abandoned church somewhere in a darker, less frequented end of Old London.

And Molly would have agreed with everyone else, that kind and good John was indeed as mad as Alice's Old Hatter...save that..

She too could hear the music, weeping from an invisible best man's violin.

She closed her eyes, and drank in the waltz that Sherlock had written from beyond the grave.

Because maybe Sherlock was only here in their minds...

But ONLY Sherlock, could have written something like that...

Of course, he was lingering...On the edges of thought,his breath like the trace of vapor from the sea, his blood like the trace of wine on the unwashed glass. And a Winter's London, was as hollow as this upturned glass, without him...He was still here...somewhere lingering in the corridors of John's Mind Asylum, here to give his last perfomance,his last assistance, if he might.

He was here,Molly heard him...felt him...

"Sherlock?" she whispered.

The joy on John's face , became more than she could bear, because it only added such volume to her own sorrow.

She stumbled out into the old church graveyard...shallow, and iron fenced, and musty, and snow-fallen, where trees bowed their heads to pray.

She went and sat under a stooped old oak,and wept...as the music bled outside to her, and hung in the air like fragrance, like the waft of smoke from winter's welcome-fire...

"Molly?" he answered her...And she perked up...

"Oh...Am I...going crazy too?Will that ...I suppose that's ok...I mean...Well..."

"Molly..." he says...softly,the wind rustles over leaves. He sounds on the edge of tears.

She remembers the night she helped him...Then remembers,that she herself "mind palaced" that night, forced to go into that terrible hospital again after dark, a few nights after the deed was done. Had to believe he would have let her help him. But whole conversation had been a lie, only in her mind...As well as was the whole scenario where she helped him scheme a way to cheating Death.

Death and Destiny had come to collect the debt that all men must pay, and only God can pay in full...

"Sherlock...you're dead...you can't...I can't..see you anymore..."

"You aren't seeing me...we're talking,so you are actually _hearing _me."

"Sherlock...don't...don't do this...I...It's...well...bad enough, that you are gone...but can't you just STAY gone,if you have to go-no wait! sorry!...please...don't go..."

Silence...He hadn't been there after all...

"Will you help me?..."he asks, out of thin air,literally , and she cries out, and stands up.

It may be in her mind, but she sees him, standing in the graveyard, as the snow falls gently, coat tossed ,like waves of dark water, about his legs in the wind.

"Or...more preciscely, will you help me to help John...?"

She swallows, and rubs her tears away...

"But...you aren't...real..."

"Is that relevant?" he asks, sadly, and stops short. Had been walking towards her.

Oh,but he looks SO REAL.

Snow clinging to his hair that is like the night incarnate about his pale face...Eyes of piercing sapphire, and emerald mixed together,indeed are heavy with the tears, he won't allow himself to weep.

The winter wind swirls fallen leaves about him, and gives him dimension. And lifts the sky-blue scarf ,for the sake of familiarity.

"Sherlock..." she stumbles closer...

And he doesn't disappear.

She reaches, and touches the icey cheek.

Cold, but solid.

He is so very real... and smiling... though his heart shattered already ,on the pavement.

"Will you...help me?" he whispers,low in his throat, like when the wind shushes the growls of sleepless thunder.

She looks back towards the church...where the "Wedding" has been.

She smiles..."What do you need?"

He smiles back..."Just...you.." he raises empty hands,as if for once, even he, hasn't a clue.

She nods...and breaks into tears, and he thumbs them away...

"But..how?"

He holds out a hand to her..Wants her to come with him. Reaches into nothingness, and lifts therefrom a look-alike of Mycroft's umbrella , opens it as the rain begins to weep for them,and takes her arm.

"First we go to see Mary...We'll need her help too ...if he is ever going to be free..And then...then we'll have to go wake up Jim Moriarty,and I'll make him make his amends, no matter how many hand shakes in hell it takes to do it..."


	2. Chapter 2 Here Comes the Bride

**Chapter 2: Here Comes the Bride~**

Every once and a while as they walk through the strangely -lit -by -starlight,snow and freezing-drizzle streets of London,Molly pinches herself to see if she is dreaming, and draws a shaky breath...She only realizes it isn't a dream, when he speaks softly to her, like the murmur of wind through far -off trees,or moving under water.

"You know,you have always been the one that could see me when I was practically invisible, Molly, so it makes perfect sense that you see me now..."

She shudders tears, as a bright, blue bird lands in the snow, as if a wisp of fabric from the trademark scarf ,about the phantom detective's neck, has sprouted wings ,and life, and learned his song.

"Shh-shherlock...Why did you do it?"

"Didn't Mycroft tell you all yet?"

"Well John's been declared mentally incompetent, and Mycroft thought Mrs. Hudson's health too fragile, and he didn't see me as ...significant enough to be informed..."

Sherlock turns to her, face as pale and hard as graven marble, horrified.

"...Well, Moriarty-Jim...uhhhh..." he looks away.

"Look at me, Sherlock. Tell me why."

He turns back,blinking tears. "I had brought his kingdom down. And for that he owed me a fall...It was more or less a public execution. If I didn't jump Molly,...John...He was ...he had snipers..."

"My God..."

"I couldn't trust his word, that they wouldn't fire on John after, or even before. I had to get the information all to Mycroft the night of the deed. And then...then I ...well really I was just buying John time. Guess you could say I risked my life to prove I was clever, and it came back to bite me...As I fell...I saw the street..." his eyes looked far off..."Coil like a concrete asp, ashen- grey...Despair...Fangs bit deep into my soul, and I went to sleep, and never woke again..All according to plan...all..."

"Sherlock...no...No, you did it to save John...Not in the name of cleverness...In the name of love..."

He turned to her and smiled..."Speaking of the name of love..."

Before them loomed the graveyard where Sherlock's broken body lay in its eternal slumber. Like an infirmary for the souls of Orphan Death.

"There are names here engraved in John's love...In his pain, Molly...I can keep him safe from bullets, and criminal schemes, even from my side of Eternity, I can do that. But to protect his heart...I can't do that by myself.I'm afraid,I am the one who broke it..."

Molly allowed herself to cry the tears Sherlock was forbidden, by his guilt. "No...No that isn't right,not really...You see...you were his heart...And you're the one who broke...all over the _literally_ bloody sidewalk..."

Sherlock looked into the Oblivion ever- opening before his lost soul. "Speaking of the name of love...there is one graven here that he lost too long ago...She can heal him...She can end his pain...Oh, look...here she comes..."

And there before them in the snow-white evening, the stars bursting above her like fireworks shattering chandaliers, a young, blonde woman, or really just a girl, no older than 18, and dressed all in white.

"Did you come to fetch me, then?" she laughed, dancing to Sherlock, and cherry blossoms were swooshed up from her long skirts, and a clean wind of spring blew up from somewhere in Eternity.

"Today's my wedding day ,you know. John called for me...And I heard him...And I said yes..." she held up a ring on her finger, a shining diamond...

"It's huge ,isn't it? Lovely ,isn't it? His heart incarnate...What do you think?"

Sherlock's eyes took on a color Molly had never seen in them. Totally perplexed wonder, that had taken his breath...

"Beautiful..." he gasped, barely audibly.."And very breakable..."

She giggled..."So, you have a plan for saving John from himself, eh, Sherlock?Well count Miss Mary in on it.." her nose wrinkled, in humor suited for a girl her age,but she had the somber expression of maturity(had she lived she would have been the same age as our doctor in question was currently)

Sherlock smiled too, "I figured you'd say that...and you don't even know what the plan is."

"Oh, but it will be fun, I figure..."

Sherlock smiled..."Yes..Very fun...We are going to cheat the devil out of Jim Moriarty for 3 days and 3 nights, and a 4th morning...We'll need him most of all...To rectify some heinous wrongs..."

Mary turned to Molly, smiling. "Oh, and what is she supposed to be doing?"

Sherlock's brows cocked, as if he hadn't figured that out yet. He took off his scarf, and wrapped it about her neck. "She will be our go-between. Help us communicate with John..."

"Isn't that witchcraft?" Molly felt uncomfortable.

"Well, techincally ,no, seeing as we came and disturbed you, and not the other way around." Sherlock said ,matter-of-factly.

Mary reached, and plucked a cherry blossom, the most perfect of them all , from her flowing skirts. Pinned it near Molly's throat, on the scarf.

"What a pretty Bride'smaid you are making then, Molly. This'll be good."

Sherlock held a hand out for her, and she took it, gracefully.

"Show these to him. Give him hope. Thank you, Molly..."

"Where are you going?" she asked ,fingering the items in question.

"To hell..."Sherlock swallowed..."Like I said, there are hands that need shaking..."


	3. Chapter 3 Cupid Is Go

**Chapter 3:Cupid is Go~**

Molly awoke the next day, curled up in the church's confession-booth, wrapped in a choir robe, which was meant to serve her as blanket. Peared out of the drab, grey room,as light began to bleed, like love from Messiah's veins, and fall in colors ,like the bruises of His suffering, through stained glass windows, across the wooden pews. She gasped, as her hand went to her throat, feeling the hauntingly familiar scarf, and perfect blossom still in place.

Not a dream, after all...

A bird alerts the world, that it is time to wake. "Up-up-up-up-up!" she twitters. And Molly rises from conviction's sad dust, and pushes out into the water-color sanctuary.

Where John is curled up, beneath the Candels of the Saints, fast asleep, hands curled under his face, blonde hair boyishly tousled.

Molly smiles, "John!" she whispers..."Hello...uhmm...John?"

All the newspapers in the world at that one moment couldn't convince Molly Hooper that this innocent dreamer was a raving lunatic, or that Sherlock Holmes had been a cowardly-fraud-genius-suicidal.

The peace on John's face was more evidence ,in his defense, than had Sherlock himself presented all the criminals ,with the blood still on their hands, bound by one long chain. The pallor of grieving for far too long was proof too, that John was not the "manipulated schizophrenic fool" the "fraudulent genius" had "used". No one, deceived and tormented, could grieve so honest and deep. John had loved Sherlock as much as Sherlock had loved John, and would have traded places with him in a heart beat. And the abuse of the press, and a genius for teacher, had caused the man to experiment with "building mind palaces", and had caused this, last line of defensive madness. In a way, it was waking -comatose. To keep him alive,after his 'Impact'.

For Sherlock Holmes may have 'hit the bricks' ,if you will. But John Watson was the 'Humpty Dumpty' of Moriarty's fairy story. And call all the horses, and call all the men you want...Nobody, save maybe God Himself, would ever put him back together again. If God, the only One Who might could make sense of the tiny shards-of-a-man he had become, _did_ put him together again?, he'd be like a china-doll that one super-glues back together, with one piece forever an empty space, a hole in his head. His sense of direction, his new eyes on the world, gone forever dark, in eternal sleep. God had taken him. Taken...Sherlock. Taken...his eyes. But God gives, and He takes. Bless God...

Molly felt bad about trying to wake John up. But she had to get him home, he shouldn't be wandering about in this end of London alone...in his state of mind. He wasn't in danger _from_ anyone,probably, he may be out of his head, but John's hands still knew how to make war... for a soldier's second nature cannot be un-learned. And all the crazies that sent Sherlock to an early grave were gone, incarcerated or dead, dealt with swift and silent by one bereft elder brother that is the British government incarnate. And he wasn't really a danger _to _any one,kind-hearted doctor that he was, he wouldn't lay a finger on anyone without a reason,not even insane.

He may be a danger to himself ?

Molly whispered his name one more time..."John..."

That time it sounded ...affectionate? Molly blushed...Why, why would it sound...well, like it had. John rolled over, and woke, smiling...almost,affectionately?...

In the meantime, the spirits of Sherlock, and young Mary, and Jim Moriarty had returned to "the Garden of the Stones" as they called the old church graveyard, to be discussing their plan.

Mary had put aside her wedding gown, and was now dressed as an agent of the British government.

"I still don't understand the get-up." Jim scowled.

"My father was a master assasin of the British government, I was his master-assasin in training. Aspiring to take over his position later in life, if cancer hadn't taken life from me."she smirked, and gave a soft laugh.

Sherlock was pacing, finger-tips pressed together..."Why, Sherlock? Why did you drag me back out into this garish sun?! What are we going to do?Huh? Dead...we're dead...Why can't we just stay that way, and let the world, and the people in it, go?..." Jim mocked,pouting.

Sherlock gave him a look that would have sent Lucifer to his knees. "Because _you..._" he jabbed his finger at him, accusingly, "Have something you need to do...Something you are really good at..."

"Make somebody miserable?" Jim smiled like a toddler about to receive chocolate.

"Make somebody fall..."

Mary froze, watching as Sherlock's limbs turned to ice, and his dark hair fell, like the shadow of death ,about his face.

"Make somebody fall...in love. Mind you..last time you did it,it was a very diffrent kind of love than the one I intend for you to do this time...But.." he smiled, lips blue from the cold of the anguish inside him.

"You are the master of it, I should say...Driving somebody to the very edge,that last step towards totally, madly,to-the-death...falling in love..."then he drew up, rail-thin body basically coiling like a serpent, rage making him shake more than the cold that ached in his phantom remnant."But this time..."

Slowly..ever so slowly...serpent-like in every way,he drew nearer and nearer Jim...Who ,for all his bravado,as the world's only consulting criminal, was actually, honestly, terrified before this man. Was backing away from him. Before he grabbed him by his coat, and lifted him off his feet. No longer hard to do...as they were weightless now.

"This time the landing will be painless...No blood...No bones shattering like windows...No sidewalks, or words unsaid, or final goodbyes, or guilty pleadings...No regrets...This time, soft as a feather, and sweet as sleep..."

Jim swallowed. "You want me?To make...somebody... fall in love? With who? Not you...Sherlock..." he started wheeze-laughing.

"John and Molly...Jim." Mary said, catching on very quickly, and finding herself liking this idea suprisingly well.

"Those two?...Pssh...I just can't...can't see that."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Look, I'm no bloody matchmaker either, but see, from a logical standpoint..."

"Here we go..."Jim scoffed, rolling his eyes. Sherlock's glare withered him, and he smiled, listening intently now.

"John was in love with Mary, and lost her..."

"Molly was secretly in love with you, and lost you..."Mary said, softly, and Sherlock swallowed, unable to acknowledge that aloud, though he knew it.

"Molly's girlishness reminds John of what he lost with the bride-to-be of his youth. The one he became a doctor for, the one he joined the army for. His princess that he was going to make proud by becoming a hero, and helping people like he couldn't help her...And at the same time, she reminds him of...of what he lost in me...Because he has always associated her with me."he cotinued.

"And Molly sees John as the one carrying the still-beating heart of Sherlock Holmes inside him." Mary smiles.

"If we could get him to see all the rest of her that is just...her...and she could likewise fall in love with "just John" we could end their grief thus. The empty pieces we left ,by shattering their lives, they could piece together by sharing their broken pieces, as one life. It just...makes sense..."

"In YOUR mind it does...of course..."Jim scoffed.

Mary swallowed..."But love isn't something you can turn off and on like the tap, Sherlock, darling."

"We've established I'm complete rubbish when it comes to human nature, and what not..."Sherlock scoffed, in exasperation. "But...we should at least try. If not lovers ,then friends of a special nature, and certainly closer than they are now..They need each other. They just don't know it yet..."

"Awwww...Sherlock talking about 'love' and 'need' and 'Operation Cupid'.How sweet..."Jim mocked.

"IT CERTAINLY COULDN'T HURT!" Sherlock growled.

"Boys!" Mary cried."Alright, take it easy, Sherlock, we'll try your way. And if it doesn't work...well..."

Sherlock looked into heaven,"Pray for one more miracle? 'Cause I'm fresh out..."~

~~~~"Molly? Oh, hello..."John laughs, more conscious today. Sits up. "Lovely scarf...reminds me of..."

"It was his ,actually."

"Ah, explains why it reminds me of him ,then." John laughed. The only sign of his madness was he didn't question staying in an old Catholic church, like it were a hotel, as being at all out of the ordinary. Though maybe that was just 'cause ,since Sherlock, his life was anything but.

"The blossom...those were Mary's favorite, yeah?My childhood sweetheart..."

"What happened to her?"Molly asked, fingering the blossom.

John staired into space. "Sick...One day, she laid down in my lap in front of the telly, and never woke up again. That was before Afghanistan,...and the reason why I became a doctor."

He smiled, and stood up. " I'll walk you home,yeah, Molly? This end of London is no place for a lady." he laughed, offering her an arm.

She smiled,"Oh, uhmmm...thanks...thank you...I mean...well I said that, uh...sorry!"

He smiled, as if he didn't mind(he didn't anyway).

"See..."Sherlock grumbled..."It can ,in fact, work..."

"Or they can be friends anyway; they are clearly friendly already."Mary laughed, sad to see John walking away with another girl, though she sincerely wished his happiness. That was what Sherlock wanted too, more than anything,in his...,well...'Sherlock' way.

"Oh..ok."Jim agreed, suddenly.

"Just like that?"Sherlock asked, skeptically raising a brow.

"Oh, Sherlock...it's too easy..."Jim smiled, a Judas smile, and Sherlock knew this was going to be anything but easy...


	4. Chapter 4 John Watson's Jericho

**Chapter 4: John Watson's Jericho~**

As they watched Molly and John walk away, Sherlock began to describe his plan to them, in better detail.

"Now if we are to set John free of his own self-induced insanity, and help him walk through the doors of his own "In-the-Mind"asylum , then we will have to take a drastic step. A fault in our calculations could result in damaging him far more than we-"

"Than YOU" Jim corrected Sherlock, coldly,

"Than WE, as in _you too."_ Sherlock gasped, and Mary flinched at the fire in his eyes, " ...We already have...But,we can assume, that if emotional trauma caused him to retreat into his own "mind palace", then emotional trauma will bring him out of it again, where we can help him."

"Lead him to loo-o-oo-ove.."Jim mocked in a sing-song voice.

"Lead him to the LIGHT! His own light;don't mock me!"

Mary would have feared for Jim's life, were it not already too late for that...

Jim swallowed. Sherlock had pinned him to the ground with his knee, and his eyes were like a knife on his throat.

"How? How exactly are we going to do that ,Sherlock? What could cause him any more trauma? The two people he loved the most are dead, and molding in their graves."

Mary wrinkled her nose in disgust. Sherlock's brows drew up, inquisitively.

"He believes we live still. We have to convince him he is wrong. So ,we will get inside his mind palace. And I will die again..."

"Oh? Is this where I come into play?"

"Actually, it's where I do." Mary cocked her gun.

Jim cocked his head. "So...let me get this straight...We..or maybe just you, are going to break into John's head, and assasinate Sherlock? ...And...this is going to work, because? Oh my God, you two are killing me! Wait? Oh..yeah..."

They glared at him, un-amused."John is on the verge of another hallucination. One, in which, he will play a scenario through his head ,where I am trying to solve the case of one Charles Magnusson, in his mind, a psychopathic genius involved in government and blackmail. In reality a news-reporter ,notorious for taking lost souls ,like the fallen Sherlock Holmes, and using them as fodder for the propagana scandals he invents to sell his paper. In John's head, he's trying to ruin Mary too, because somehow he knows she's an assasin(or would have been...) In his head, she is trying to assasinate him, to cover her tracks, and I intervene. But he is only day- dreaming now. If we allow him to continue using his own mind, this will end very diffrently than we need it to. The alternative is for Mary to turn and ..." Sherlock faltered.

"And shoot you..."Mary volunteers. "Which will really throw John off, shake his trust in his own eyes, because that will be unbelievable."

"And then that's where you come in." Sherlock says to Jim, who smiles. "You will appear in all your sick glory, and bleed your own madness into his mind scenario. You have an encyclopedia of information to use against me,given you by Mycroft. Images of me as a child, and Mycroft's disdain of me, images of Redbeard, my childhood dog, anything at your disposal, you know what to do with it. You 'll play your game, and I won't stop you, because Molly will be there to stop it all...And he will at last be free of his self-made cage."

"And the first person he'll see when he comes out of it will be the lovely Molly Hooper, and he'll fall madly in love? Oh,Sherlock...tsk tsk tsk"

Mary shook her head, "The first person he sees will be the equivalent ,in his mind, of a life-line. And he needs that, needs...her. And she needs to be that for him, needs to help Sherlock ,for her own sake, one last time..."

~~~John stopped like he imagined Sherlock's heart had stopped, in the eyes of his mind...He was having a full blown anxiety attack now.

"John?"Molly called from somewhere far-away, rubbing his arm to bring him back to her. "Hello, John? You ok?"

He had been walking her home when his mental scenarios began to run, like wild horses, through his head again.

"Police, ambulance anything, Molly, anything!" he gasped and fell to his knees..."It's so wrong, it's so bloody..."

"What? What is it?" Molly asked, sinking to her knees beside him.

"It's...How could SHE have shot..." he looks up, and his eyes are frozen solid with his pain, with disbelief,with insanity.

In his mind, the propagandist Magnusson is kneeling at Mary's feet. Sherlock comes in, they exchange words, and then Mary fires...

"And am I ...really loosing you again?! No, God ,no!" Sherlock look at me!"

John started performing CPR on the sidewalk.

"Molly...call the paramedics...DO something..."

"John..."Molly whispered, tears flooding her eyes.

John compressed the imaginary chest the sidewalk was serving as so hard he broke his wrist. People were turning and stairing. He cried in agony, "We're loosing him! An ambulance, Molly! Listen to me, he IS dieing...!"

"John.."

"HERE APPLY PRESSURE THERE,I'LL CALL THEM MYSELF!" with his un-broken hand he started digging for his mobile.

"JOHN,STOP IT!" Molly shrieked suddenly. People were clearing the street. Some people turned to see if maybe the maniac might be trying to violate the girlish lady ,shaking like a leaf,in the crisp morning air.

John looked at her in desperation, and his phone dropped to the pavement, and shattered. And, in her own anguish, she shouted.

"HE DIED TWO YEARS AGO!"

"I can't believe that..."John gasped...blinking back tears. Sank to his knees again, drew up like a frightened little boy around himself...

Molly swallowed, " Jim.." she croaked out ,hoarsely, disgusted by her old boyfriend's name, "Jim... he had made an elaborate plan to kill you. Had a sniper aiming for you. They wanted to kill you to punish him for bringing his ring...uhm...of..well...colleauges down. The only way to buy you any time, was to ..."

John closed his eyes, "Oh God... DON'T...Don't say it..."

"John..."Molly crawled to him, and took his broken wrist in her careful pathologist-so-well-trained-for-steadiness-and- accuracy hands. Scooped some snow up on it carefully, awkwardly wrapped the end of her coat around it. John was flat-out crying now.

"So all of it...His interrupting my proposal, the wedding...His being in the drug house...Everything...was it...in my head?"

Molly swallowed. "Well,actually, I believe you HAVE seen,Sherlock, John. I don't think _you _are crazy, but...well...you might think I am...after I tell you..."

"Tell me...what?"

"John, just because you've seen Sherlock... doesn't mean he's come back to life..."

John was silent now ,thinking. And then it occured to him..."Mary...has been dead for over a decade..." he realized on a sudden.

Molly nodded,.."I might, sorry...but...well...think you were..you know...Had it not so happened that I too have seen Sherlock...since..."

The walls of John Watson's Jericho came crashing down then with a mighty shout from the top of his lungs...One of pure anguish. Molly bit her lip till it was white.

"A GHOST?!"

"Oh, that went according to plan, Sherlock."Jim snickered.

"Stop! Can't you see, it hurts him to do this, to admit this to John, more than anything you could have EVER done to him?!"Mary shouts, though nobody can hear her.

Sherlock runs from them all, face covered in his long ,white fingers. When he steps out into a busy street, he does what he wishes,because now he is equiped to do so, and vanishes into thin air.


	5. Chapter 5 The Table of the Stones

**Chapter 5: The Table of the Stones~**

**(Author's note: My friend tommyginger told me about a song called In Un Altra Vita by Ludovico Einaudi. I listened to it whilst I proofread this,and in case anyone wonders, in the author's imagination, the violin piece to that song is the same piece Sherlock is playing at the end)**

John had meant to take Molly home. But,instead, Molly took John to see Sarah.

Who put a cast on John's broken wrist, and had the good graces to not ask how he did so, and smiled sadly at her ex-boyfriend/ex-colleuge gone Mad-as-a-Hatter, but said nothing to him other than what was neccesary. In a way, that had hurt worse than if she had out-right said something horrible about how Sherlock had been in life, and how she wasn't suprised that his influence made John go off the deep end.

And then, Molly took John to lunch, and more carefully explained the events of the last few years, ending with:

"You have been very sick. And Sherlock's phantom told me he has come back to make sure you get better."

"Why didn't he come to me himself?" John gasped, angrily.

Molly swallowed, "You thought he was alive. How can he haunt you if you think he's alive?"

John staired blankly at her for a moment, as he realized that she was spot-on.

Molly smiled, "So, I say, we get right work. Let's go..."

"Go where?" John stood up.

"To where Sherlock took me last night...The graveyard he's lying fast asleep in..."

Reluctantly, John followed her out the door, and down the street. They weren't far from it now, and decided to go on foot...

~~~ "He picks a fine time to disappear, and leave me with YOU!" Mary shouts.

She and Jim Moriarty are sitting on top of a table-smooth flat tomb, that they have converted to a tea table.

"Well, begging your pardon, princess! I didn't exactly wish to be here either!"

Suddenly they feel the sorrow, and regrets, and funeral march of the mourning.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, someone sniveling this way comes!" Jim whispered.

"SHHH!" Mary scolded, and looked up, hoping to see Sherlock come back from his moping.

"It's Molly and John..." she gasps, standing on the table.

They are walking more slowly now. And they are bringing the snow and cold, and winter rain with them.

Molly is talking awkwardly, and softly, and smiling brightly, trying to make this easier. John is clutching tightly to her arm. Hasn't come back here since he'd fooled himself into believing Sherlock was alive.

They are actually nowhere near Sherlock's grave. That's in the newer part of the graveyard. They've backed up ,around 18 years worth of mortality rate, to where Mary Morstan was laid to rest, when she fell asleep, in John's arms, forever and the last time.

Suddenly John stops, and grows as stiff and cold as the Grey Children, as Mary calls the ugly statues that are standing all about, in weird poses, as if trying to ward off would- be visitors, to this lonely place. Molly follows his gaze. To the maiden, around age 18, with the short blonde hair, and the pouting lips, stairing at them with large sad eyes. And to the right sits Jim, appearing more like Richard Brook than the evil crime lord he intended to appear as.

"Top of the afternoon to you, love-birds-to-be."

They were far too taken aback to suddenly meet with people who died long ago, than to reply.

"Mmm...Ma-ma-" John couldn't speak, just softly stole forward.

Mary smiled, sadly,"Hello, John."

"Am I?"

"No,you're not..You're perfectly sane..." she giggled, eyes dropping shyly to her feet.

Molly drew a shaky breath, and laid a hand on John's shoulder as he staired in disbelief.

"Where is Sherlock?"Molly asked, as John hid his mouth in the cup of his palm.

"Oh...that's a good question. We sort've crashed John's mind palace scenario on purpose so he would come to and realize what was going on. And well...Sherlock isn't dealing with it...I mean, it's not like Sherlock Holmes to actually know what to do when he's emotionally overwhelmed..."

John gasps, as he listens to her talk,"You haven't changed at all!" he whispered...eyes as wide as an owl's eyes.

She smiles at him, "And you've aged gorgeously. How old are you now, 36,37?"

His mouth trembled. Not only was she visible, she was looking at him. Not only was she audible, she was talking to him. He couldn't believe it...

"You...you died almost two decades ago..." he smiles...

"It's been too long,John...Too long. But you were never going to be able to see me till Sherlock came along."

"Sh-sherlock?"

"He gave you eyes to see invisible things, dear...And now you see..." she closed her eyes, as tears rolled free.

"Where is Sherlock?" John asked, suddenly hoping ,against what he durst not hope, that if he could see the long-lost bride...maybe just maybe his best man...

And that's when they heard music weeping from the newer end of the graveyard. A violin singing the sort of songs only one musician could weave onto it's strings, in a spider's web of sound.

Mary smiled..."Why don't you go to him?Convince him to come to the table...It's about tea time now, isn't it?"

"Me...go?"

Molly nodded. "You might be able to believe it if he was the one to explain. After all, you doubt yourself ,and other people. But you never had a hard time believing Sherlock Holmes, even when the world said he was wrong..."

John gasped, because it was true. And drew a measured breath, and marched himself, soldier that he was, to the one part of London he swore he would never again let his shadow darken.

Sherlock's Grave...

~~ John walked like his feet were made of smoke, silent as one of the sad, vanishing, red-skinned warriors of long- ago closer and closer to the blood-soaked spot,re-living the fall of the only angel-not-an-angel that ever really mattered, a thousand times ,with every sad ,scraping of the bow against the string.

And suddenly there, before the stone that bore his own name, Sherlock stood, eyes closed, face stained, like he had no doubt been weeping, but had stopped before anyone else would have noticed, even as a phantom, concerned with keeping the professional mask that he had always worn. He rocked back and forth, his violin in his arms, as if the instrument were an infant, and the song was the lullaby he meant to lull it to sleep with. To hush those who lay about him, in the dull linen -sheets- of- the- snow, in the dirty beds,of the Orphanage of Souls, where the forgotten dead go to pine away out of memory, and longing for a family , perhaps _their_ family, and long lost friends, to just pass through,and notice them again. Far away from touch, from the music of human voices...,of human laughter. Something so very human, about the abscence of humanity. Because no one, not even the Dead, wants to be alone...

John froze. Turned to ashes and stone at once, mixed with his tears, like termites mix their hills together, sand and wet, and he could feel his nerves like termites, gnawing at skin and bone. And this!-not at all possible!-

But there stood the wisest and best, and Most- Human -Amongst- Phantoms. And he played the Song of the Stones, performing for the Dead, who judge not,knowing they ,themselves, have already been judged.

"Sherlock." John breathed.

And the music stopped as abruptly, and as agonizingly, as his heart had two long years ago.

His eyes were wide, and the color so much brighter, in the wake of his tears, much like that strange tone the sky takes, after the storm.

"John?"

There they stood, still with Time, that paused to give them all the space they needed, for this after-the-last meeting...


	6. Chapter 6 Speak Now

**Chapter 6: Speak Now (Or Forever Hold Your Peace)**

Silence hung in the air between them ,as heavy as smoke seeping up from the Gates of Hell, far below their feet. John's heart rolled in his chest, like the sea in her unrest, and he choked on his tears, and Sherlock's eyes grew wide, and burned as if illuminated with candles. And his tears broke free themselves, silent and streaming, like if river's slit their wrists, the sorrow unable to be held in, by the eyes of the of the sky. So the heaven's wept with Sherlock,who's instrument disappeared,and he thrust his hands in the pockets of his great coat, that flicked about him now, like the tails of the horses, come to escort dead men to Sleep.

Silence burns the air between them, and it hurts(for John ,at least, have phantom's the need?) even to breathe. Then John's anger melts, like streams in spring, as he realizes Sherlock Holmes is crying in front of him. That he is the only one, on earth and in heaven, that Sherlock will take that bloody professional's mask off for. John forgives him at once. Wants to take him in his arms, but is afraid he might disappear.

"Why?"is the only word he can croak from a throat that has forgotten the feel and taste of water.

Sherlock smiles grimly..."You."

"Explain..."

Sherlock swallows, and reaches a shaking, garishly empty hand out to John. John feels his spine bursting with electricty, and he suddenly no longer cares if this could be insanity, and no longer fears Sherlock's fading away, he gets to him in 3 great strides, and throws his arms around him. He's cold...but solid.

Sherlock's arms encircle him fiercely, desperate,and they are locked like that now, and even a bolt of lighting ,from some frosty throne of fearsome Titans, could not seperate them ,in that moment.

"Explain..."John croaks,again, and buries his face ,boyishly,into the taller man's chest. Sherlock's finger's find their way to John's hair, protectively, like a big brother, though of the two of them, he is(he _was_)the younger.

"Right here..." he gasps and presses a finger to the back of John's skull, "That's where your head would have shattered if the sniper had been allowed to 's orders were to hold his fire if I jumped off the roof ,where you and the rest of the world could see. That was my punishment for unraveling the Consulting Criminal's Web..."

John looks up, eyes wide in sheer horror. "You..."his lips are trembling. Sherlock smiles, a pained expression now, but doesn't interrupt.

"You died _for me?!_"

Sherlock takes his face in both hands..Cold hands...Oh, he's so cold...This alone makes John cry harder. Silence...Aching.

"Sherlock...you died FOR ME?!"

John is absolutely horrified. Clutches Sherlock tighter, waiting for the response...

"Who else, John?" Sherlocks laughs, and then is crying openly, and with some shame. John thumbs the tears, utterly speechless for a long moment.

"For...me..."

"Yup."(emphasis on the final "p" sound)

"Would for you too, you know?"

"I KNOW. Which is why I didn't tell you about all the threats before the Final Fall."

"Oh my God, Sherlock!"

"Shhh...It's not like I'm in danger anymore."

Awkward silence...

"They uhmm...*whew* sorry this is just so...weird...ahhhhhhhh. They want us...to come back...for ..tea?"

John stood back from Sherlock,and clenched and unclenched his fists. Sherlock smiled.

"Mary Morstan's afternoon tea. Yes, I know. She invites me every afternoon. It's how I met her."

"Who else comes?"

"Nobody I know."

"Does...anybody...come?"

"No, of course not, If 'people' came I wouldn't be there!" Sherlock smiled, like he rarely ever did, and John gasps, because it hurts to see that,knowing now what all he knows...Knowing that he isn't really back. That he's dead and in the ground beneath their shoes, but his spirit's come back, and he has no idea for how long.

They start walking that way. "There are things...I never told you." John mutters.

"I was right here, like I am now.." he gestured to his ghostly frame, "I heard the things you wanted to say."

"Not...not all of them."

Sherlock nodded, "There were things I should have told you too..."

"I love you, Sherlock. Not..not like." Sherlock turned in suprise. "Like a brother...I- I don't have one, biologically...So, you , well..."

Sherlock smiled..."I uhmm...love you too...like like you said,uhhmm ..." he wrinkled his nose..."Never mind, I don't even want to think about 's just...Romance...I don't...not my area...Too...bazaar..."

John took his hand. Sherlock looked at him again. "Sorry, I had to clear all that up-before I.."

Sherlock laced his fingers in John's..."I don't care...Infact...it's uhmm...good."

John couldn't imagine, as he felt how desperately Sherlock's hand clung to his, how lonely a phantom would be...Probably even more so than he had been ,left in his wake to grieve.

And that is when they came back to the others. Mary took them, one by each arm.

"Come have a seat,boys. And let's all catch up..."


	7. Chapter 7 Cupid's Broken Faucet

**Chapter 7: Cupid's Broken Faucet~**

John slid into a seat where he could be closest to Mary. Watched her move, himself motionless, watched her breathe(so, apparently phantoms do draw air of some sort),himself breathless. Watched her, totally smitten , just as before. This made her heart ache,like the aching of the drum, empty inside, though a rhythm implies a beating heart.

_No,John..._ Mary thought._You must find love, and happiness, outside of what you lost..._

"Molly! Here, darling, have a seat!" Mary sits Molly very closely next to John. Molly gulps, awkwardly, and straightens her coat, having almost been put in his lap.

"Sorry..."

"You're fine." John mumbles, shooting Mary a suspicious glance, and then, is enthralled in her ethereal beauty again. Hasn't aged a day...Has the light of Eternity hanging about her. John,suddenly realizes,so does Sherlock.

And then ...

"What are you doing here?"John asks Moriarty, teeth grit.

"I made him come..."Sherlock gasps, "Unfinished business..."

"Actually,it's penance."Jim sneers," Sherlock's just jealous that I haven't got a soul to lose."

"And _you're _just wriggling under my thumb, like a worm on hot pavement, waiting to make the slip,so you can reek mischief, aren't you,Jimmy?" Sherlock reached across the table, and ruffled the man's hair ,wildly. Jim's eyes burned with a little too much hate, so much it was actually comical.

Mary scowled,and slammed a tray, "BOYS! If I am to be forced to spend eternity with you, as the guardian angels of the Watsons!-then...you -you will have to get along better than this! Or every time I will shoot you both, and Sherlock!-next time it will hurt for real, 'cause you won't be in John's head."

_Guardian angel of the Watsons?_ John thought, perplexed. "So,*ehem* you all look out for me, and Harry?"

Mary smirked,in her usual foxy way, "Oh, well Harry's mean enough to look out for herself. So ,mostly, me and Sherlock look out for you and the future Misses Watson."

Sherlock smiled ,endearingly, at Molly. This made her blush, because ,secretly, she had dreamed for a long time that he would smile that way at her. But ,then, she felt puzzled...

_Future Misses Watson?_ she thought..._And only THEN he smiled at me?..._

"And I just sit back to watch you fall."Jim said matter-of-factly

Sherlock spilled scalding hot tea all over himself, and leaped over the table,tackling Jim into the grass,with ferocity completely animal, and out of his character,too fierce even for John in his anger.

"NO ONE ELSE IS FALLING!"

John's head was burning, at the horrible mention of a fall. And ,too, Sherlock's reaction,to his suprise, had frightened him. Had frightened all of them. Mary had backed away, eyes wide. Molly was hiding behind a gravestone.

Sherlock sat up, blinking, horrified, having scared himself.

Jim swallowed, "Can I get up now?" he jeered, nose crinkling, not at all showing how badly what just happened had frightened him ,as well.

"Do you promise to behave?"Mary asked, voice low and threatening.

"No..."

"Ok, Sherlock, he's all yours."

Sherlock smiled, wickedly.

"ALRIGHT! I'lll mind my manners! Let me up, Sherlock!GOD!"

They stood up, and only then did John see how Sherlock's hands were shaking and steaming from being burned, but it quickly faded away, by his cold...So cold. Holding him had been like holding ice...It was ...scary.

"Molly?" Sherlock ducked behind the gravestone. She peared out from behind her folded arm, and her face was pained.

"You've...you've changed, Sherlock."

He nodded, and held out a shaking hand, "But you are still the sweet,thoughtful,gracious lady you have always been..."

She smiled, and her heart warmed within her, remembering why she was in love with a dead man.

"Isn't that right,John?" Sherlock called, and sat Molly next to him, again, much too close. Sherlock was actually far less subtle (Mary rolled her eyes over his shoulder).He practically plopped the young woman in John's lap. Molly gasped, embarassed.

"Isn't Molly Hooper probably the kindest and most thoughful person we have ever met?"he asked again, beaming, encouragingly. Molly stood up, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean, uh,,,"

"No, it's ok. And well,"John stammered, "Yes...Yes she is."

Molly blushed ,embarassed. Mary took a sip of her tea, trying to make this less awkward.

"So,Molly, do you have a boyfriend?" she asked. Sherlock glared at her"Too obvious." he mouthed.

They were doing an absolute RUBBISH job at this.

"You know...I need to go...I just remembered, I have to be at work earlier than I thought I did!"Molly replied, looking anxiously at her wristwatch.

"Oh, and I was going to walk you home, right?" John stood up, and winced.

Molly smiled, "You...well, uhmmm, you were...yes..."

John turned back to the ghosts, just in time to see Sherlock "fist bump" the air, mouthing a huge "YES!" And Mary and Jim silently bickering, pointing fingers and mouthing insults.

"So,...we will...see each other?" John asked,wistfully.

Sherlock winked, "Just follow your ears, mate."

John smiled at him, wondering if this weren't a dream. Went to Mary. "Thanks for the tea, darling."he whispered, and reached, and kissed her. Mary blushed, and blinked rapidly. "Oh!, ...oh you're ,you're welcome...Uh, Molly's waiting... you should...go..." she said, and sadly pealed his fingers away from her own.

"Yeah..."John nodded, as he fully understood what Mary and Sherlock's phantoms were trying to do.

Sherlock was suddenly wrapping another phantom duplicate of his iconic blue scarf around John's neck,

"Off you go now-Away with you!" he cried, patting his hands into John's back in an 'ushering-away' gesture.

John nodded, and followed Molly, who was as red as a teacher's apple.

"It's working, Mary! We'll be hearing wedding bells before you can blink, and they'll be happy!" Sherlock laughed, unusually merry.

"They'll be...*ehem* right.."Mary sighed ,wistfully, and started to clear the mess. Sherlock turned to her,confused.

John watched them as he slolwy stole away...

No,Sherlock didn't get it...not at all...

"Hey...Molly?" John took off running after her...

~~~~She was crying, and pretending she wasn't. "Sorry...I..."

John nodded, "No,it's ok. I thought you told me at lunch you were off today ,though?"

"I am off today, but I had to get away from him."

"What he did bothered you that much ,huh? Be totally honest, that scaired the devil out of me."

"Oh,no...that's not it...I.." she bit her lip. "John...did I ever tell you?"

"That you were in love with him?"

"So I did then?"

"No,it was just so obvious. To everyone, apparently, BUT him. He wasn't...he didn't..."

"I know...That's why I kept it to myself. Even beyond the grave he doesn't get it. Seems as though he never will...John, you saw what they were trying to do..."

"Yes...They're playing match -maker with us...Is that,is that what's bothering you? "

She nodded, biting her was understandingly silent.

"It's just...I mean, John, you are a really nice guy, and uh,,," John watched her eyes, as they flooded again.

"It's not you...It's the fact that Sherlock and Mary seem to think they can be so easily ..."

"Replaced..."John finished, and felt his heart burst.

Molly looked at him. "It's like...they just don't realize how much we ...LOVED them..."

John swallowed. "So, I guess what we have to do, is convince them that we aren't budging on it, despite their efforts to make us fall in love. I ,John Watson, do hereby sware to break Cupid's bow over my knee, and clog the "emotional faucet"Sherlock has stereotyped any show of feeling into being."

"And I, Molly Hooper, swear to help you. Forever friends, and only friends, so help us God!"

They shook on it.


	8. Chapter 8 Sherlock Sees the Light

**Chapter 8: Sherlock Sees The Light**

It wasn't an achingly long time before John met Sherlock's phantom again.

This next time it was very ,very late at night. The night following his and Molly's pact, to be exact. John was still considered mentally ill, by the standards of his colleagues, and was no longer employed. Mycroft,out of a guilty concious, was paying the rent ,on both the old rooms at 221 B, for that reason.

When John woke, he didn't reach for his gun in a flurry of sudden adrenaline. He didn't leap from his bed ,ears pricked, wondering 'who'? He didn't call him by name. Quietly, aching heart beating in his throat, he stole to the kitchen, and flicked the light on.

There stood Sherlock, cold and pale, but just as solid as before. He had a bouquet of roses, and a string of pearls, in his hands.

"No ,Sherlock, I won't marry you. I love you, but not that way. So ,let's just thank God you're a bloody ghost, because people would be talking about this, for certain."John sighed,trying to make a quip to conceal his heart- ache.

Impossible to conceal anything when you're best friend so happens to be the World's- Only- Consulting- Detective. Or rather , happens to _have_ _been_. He was the only one in the world, and he will be always be the only one that ever was. And he will be missed,immensely. He is the only one who doesn't know that yet.

Sherlock's brows curl in confusion. Oh!,John almost chokes a sob. No ,not at all, he doesn't get it at all!

"It's what people do, isn't it? When they want somebody to fall in love with them?..They buy them things, take them to fancy parties, -which reminds me-we'll have to teach you to dance if you're to win her over. I'm a literalist, and it would be easy to-literally- sweep her off her feet, she's little."

"Who?" John asked, but he already knew.

Sherlock smiled awkwardly,"Well, you didn't understand when we tried to do it the subtle way, so I've decided to take matters into my own hands, like usual..."

John was shaking his head, but didn't interrupt him. Sherlock pointed the roses at him.

"I've brought Mary back with me, so she can give you her permission. And heal you, and end your pain...like only she can. Listen, uh...there's no use in you or Molly hanging on to emotional ties of the past. Let... uhmm..."Sherlock's throat suddenly got thick, not wanting to say this. Not wanting to go into the wintry exile of Death, and leave all that was his own behind. Not wanting to be replaced.

"You need to let go. Move on. I know it will be hard for you, but Mary wants you to be happy, and...so, so do I. And Molly, ahh..., lost the same thing in me that uhmm...you lost in Mary ,and I ,uh, think you and Molly would be happy with each other. But, you know that silly girl, you'll have to be the one to take the first step...So, I broughtyousomeflowersandMarysaidthesepearls..."

Sherlock's words blurred together in a blur, John's head too swimmy to hear any of them. His eyes filled with hot-as-lightning tears. His hand wrapped around a bottle of wine sitting on their kitchen counter.

Sherlock was abruptly silent, and spluttering wine, pieces of glass littering his raven curls. He hadn't been hurt ,(how could he have been?)but John felt terrible.

"WHAT did I say NOW?!"Sherlock gasped, completely exasperated.

John reached out, and dusted the broken glass out of his hair. Lead him to the sink, and wiped his face off with a dish-towel. Then,he collared him, forced him to look him in the eyes.

"How _dare_ you?"

"How _dare _I? Oh, I haven't the foggiest what I've even _dared_ this time."

"YOU THINK?!" John bit his lip, trying to restrain himself..."You think that I could just move on that easily...?"

"She agreed with the whole idea?"

"No!Not that...Though I will have a word with her myself..."he swallows, feeling amazing gratitude at the thought that he could even have a word with her( and Sherlock!) at all.

"You actually expect me to ever get over you, Sherlock?! You expect me to "let go" amd "move on"?!"

He was shaking now, hands shaking ,no strength left in his grip, and bowed his head, breathless.

"The day you died, something died deep inside me too...Sherlock..." He looks up. "I can't let go... if I have nothing left to hold on to. I can't move on... if there is no where left to go. You _honestly!_ don't know what you were to me..."

Sherlock frowned."I was your danger...Your crutch... the thing that impeded you from ever having a normal relationship with a woman,(or any kind of relationship ,really) because I am( I..uh...was) such a freak no one wanted to go through me to get to you.."

"Stop ...Just..." John's hand caressed his face..."Just shut up and listen..."

He looked up into Sherlock's eyes and realized that the Genius-Without-a-Clue at last had seen the light. In his eyes.

"Sherlock...If I was your heart, like Moriarty said, then you-" he nearly choked, "You were my veins...You were the life inside me , brought me back...I had lost all hope after Afghanistan ,and would have probably ended in a similar way that you did, left to my own despair."

Sherlock's turn to choke, eyes gone wide.

"You saved me, many more times than once. And I would have rather had you than all the relationships in the world. In my eyes, you were perfect, in your own rough-about-the-rims way..."

Now John was crying ,again, feeling that too many tears had been shed as of late. Sherlock swallowed, trying to process all that was being said to him.

"When you bled on the sidewalk, and your blood ran through my fingers? That was the day that my life ebbed away...And...uhhh... the only reason I didn't physically follow you off the ledge,is because my soul died with you on impact. And Sherlock...I went insane...I went insane ,just to have a spark of life in that Cold. I went crazy because of the boredom of life without you,not because I was grieving for you.

Because, see,...there would be no comfort in Madness for my grief. No need to give morphine to a corpse, Sherlock...The day you died to save me, was the day I died from after-shock of the kind of love you must have had to step off that bleeding rooftop..." John laughed, "You loved me to death, literally. Quite by accident, you killed me with your love."

Sherlock was shaking his head wildly, "Please...don't say that. You can get over it! Of course _you_ can!You are Captain John Watson of the-"

"Oh, I know all that!" John waved it off, "But ,_you_ were Sherlock Holmes, The World's Only Consulting Detective-First and Last,-my best mate-that is irreplaceable."

Silence filled the flat,and John turned to the roses and the pearls. "And as for Mary, she was my princess...And there will never be any one that can have her crown. Molly 's great...but she isn't Mary. I've decided, now that I've seen her, (and it's ok with me, Sherlock...) I'm never going to fall in love again..."

"Please don't...It's quite painful." Sherlck gasped, and John choked out a strangled yelp, and tackle-hugged him for the second time in two days, horrified by his cold, and they slid down the face of their refrigerator.

Mrs. Hudson came in to check on John a little while later. He appeared to be curled up at the bottom of the fridge door, holding armfulls of air, and was muttering softly,

"No, you git! Never! I can have only one BEST mate, and that was _**you**_...And we're returning these pearls to their rightful owner's headstone tommorow morning, and explaining it all to her too..."

Mrs. Hudson covered her mouth, softly weeping. "Oh, John...I'm sorry...You know, some night's I fancy I hear him too...He had such a lovely voice..."

She turned, and slipped, ghostly herself, down the stairs. Unaware ,that the voice she fancied, truthfully had spoken...

"So, a bit not good?, trying to nudge you and Molly into love?"

John laughed ,bitterly, "It simply doesn't work that way..."

Sherlock sighed, and laid his head on John's shoulder, surprisingly content to be in his arms. No more Work to do, to keep him always buzzing about, he could finally sit and talk...

"I'm sorry...that I don't get it..."

"Oh, Sherlock..." John laughed again, ran a hand through his hair, affectionately messing it up..."It's really ok..."

And for the moment, it really WAS ok. Because love doesn't have to be understood, or even returned(though here it most definitely was), to live and thrive. And that, I suppose, is Amazing Grace passing through human hands and shadows, and downcast eyes.


	9. Chapter 9 Lady in Waiting

**Chapter 9: Lady in Waiting~**

It was the wee hours of the morning when Molly got home from her shift at Bart's mortuary. She pulled her sweater closer to herself, unable to shake off that chill of Death's dark shadow that she had always lived under. Her whole life seemed to revolve around Death. She was a pathologist. She worked in the one hospital in London notorious for casting Death's shadow, since the "Angel of Death"...

Molly shivered again, and swallowed a lump in her throat the size of Mount Everest. Why was it ,also, that she just had to be struck in the heart, not by Cupid's arrow, but by a bolt of lightning straight from the piercing eyes of said Death's Angel? Molly couldn't even cry for him. Didn't really need to. Death was so close to her already, it wasn't like she'd really lost him...

Still,something was un-settling in the dark of her apartment tonight...What could it be? She went through a mental note. It wasn't the feel of being followed, or the hush of coming war...It wasn't the creeping feet of sickness...or the cold wind of winter storms. It wasn't fear of the unknown, or the regret of what might have been...

Actually ,it was nothing more than the smell of burning biscuits.

Had she left the stove on?!

She ran upstairs, feeling as if fire would open his teeth for her, and finally devour her, and there would be no Angel of Death, no quick-witted Sherlock to come and save her from it.

Fear ,and that soul-splitting second of agony, when she realized again that her Sherlock, most special of friends, was no longer amongst the throngs of the living, to call apoun in need, tore through her as she stepped into her kitchen, ready to accept her fate.

Instead ,she found the phantom of young Mary valiantly trying to bake biscuits for tea. On the table was a parcel of new clothes.

Mary grabbed the fire extinguisher, and dispelled Molly's nightmare as soon as it had begun. Turned, smiling.

"Oh, hey!" she laughed, "Sorry, I'm no good as a cook!But, I was trying to make something special for you, so we could sit and talk..."

"Talk about what?" Molly asked. Mary smiled..."About..." she smiled, embarassed.

"Molly..."she said, almost pleading, "John...Uhhh...John needs you...And...well...I think...I think that...you just might need him too...And maybe, maybe as just friends...But maybe, maybe as more? SoIbroughttheseclothesonthetableandSherlocksaidthattheshirtwasyourfavoritecolorandhethoughtmaybeyoubothcouldusethisticketforthecafeontheSquareand..."

Mary's words swam together, thick and cold as ice-cream in Molly's ears, stinging like a nest of firey hornets in her heart...

"Mary, stop!" she gasped,quietly, and the girl's mouth snapped shut, whilst she was holding up the blouse Sherlock had helped her pick out. Molly smiled ,sweetly,through her tears.

"It's uhmm...it's very sweet of you to try to help me dress nice for a date with John..." she took the shirt ,appreciatively, "And if you don't mind...I'd like to keep these...But...uhmmm..."

Mary's flashy blue eyes were filled with confusion, and sorrow...Not wanting to give John away to anyone. Not wanting to be replaced.

"He's _your _John, Mary. He always was, and he always will be. He knows that now that he's seen you..." she smiled again, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes...

"And while John and I will always be friends. ALWAYS..." she nearly choked, "And while John is a wonderful man...he...he...well...he ...uhmm..."

Mary smiled ,sadly, at Molly who was chewing her lip and couldn't say it.

"He isn't Sherlock..."

"No..."

Mary reached and hugged Molly. Who finally allowed herself to cry ,like the winter rain, that began to pour outside.

"Really, I owe you, Molly. A great many things. You saved my John...and so I promise to look after your Sherlock forever...Just call me your "Lady in Waiting" "

"Waiting for what?"

Mary laughed, a sound like music bleeding over its sheet. "Oh, but,Molly, darling! And here you live under the Shadow as if you think death is forever. When this is only for a few more days, a few more wet and teary winters, a few more sleepy springs, and breathless summers, and momentarily- waking autumns and then,...Then we will all be together again. In a diffrent life, in a diffrent world, where love is perfect and real and no more confused..." She thumbed Molly's tears away, and laughed,

"I'm proof that life is very brief, aren't I?... And since life is too short for waiting, but Eternity is a long, long time to think...and regret...Leave the waiting to me,Molly. Be free...Now is the time for you..to choose."

Molly nodded as the tears poured free. She had saved her John's life, and so in return Mary had saved hers. And now Molly knew what she needed to do, at last, and it was scary...But she had to try.

Because life is too short to always be dreaming, but never to wake up.

"Sherlock left me his notes..." she smiled..." And I think...that I...could discover that cure for cancer he was talking about after all...For Sherlock. For John...And for you...For your memory."

Mary smiled, watching Molly's eyes, as she remembered that day.

"_So, here we were experimenting with the various reactions of blood to gold and silver compounds,to make faded stains become bold, and if we don't accidently shrink the cyst on the lab gerbil's throat! Haha!, Molly, we could be making history, changing the world, not even on purpose..."_

_" I suppose...we could...But I thought we were trying to save the world, one criminal investigaton at a time..."_ she had teased.

And he had looked up, brows knitting as they always did, when he was puzzling over something profound.

_"Maybe changing their world WILL save them?"_

All these years later, she realized at last...Change brought salvation. For someone to live, someone had to...She was crying anew...

Sherlock had died for her too...and she hadn't realized it till this moment. Died ,so that, at last, she could be free of the life under Death's macabre shadow she had been living in. Under the posionous eyes of Jim Moriarty, who promised love and an exciting future, and lied with velvet lips.

She had cared too much, and in way Sherlock had been right about that too. All the caring in the world couldn't help these people (though Sherlock, clearly, HAD cared, whether he said it or no...)

Only action could help them. A choice, a change...

Rather than always asking the why of their deaths, always looking to find answers for people, Molly Hooper decided at this moment how to spend the rest of her life. Not to console the people, because the world was bad place. But to change the world...and maybe make it better.

One chemical breakthrough at a time.

Mary watched it all in her eyes, and laughed,..."Best of luck..." she whispered ,voice laced with something Molly had been foreign too , for too long.

Hope...


	10. Chapter 10 The Call That Came Too Late

**Chapter 10: The Call That Came Too Late~**

It was late on the same night that Sherlock came stealing into the kitchen of 221 B Baker Street, with roses and pearls, and clueless well wishing, that his brother had atlast been tempted to the end of himself.

Mycroft has been absent from this narrative, for the better part of its telling, mostly because he had gone incognito at the bottom of every bottle of spirits he could find. But the devil had slipped down the neck of the bottle, and danced his flaming way off the reflection of the glass, causing the liquid to burn and hold Mycroft a prisoner, like the genie in eternal torment,one too many times...

"Penance feels good ,doesn't it?" Jim said from somewhere across the cold study room...

"Come to do the deed, in the most appropriate place. Just think, Myc...Two years ago, he was standing right here...In this room. Trying to appeal to your better nature, if you even have one, for the last time. He had all the evidence. Left you all the evidence. He confessed more openly to you than if you were the bloody Bishop...And you...you let them...You didn't even try to stop the papers, did you, Mycroft? You let ink bleed from the papers...Bleed without a staunch...You could have been his tourniquet at the end, Mycie...really? But you let the papers bleed, all over the streets of London, ironically just like your baby brother did when he split his skull open on the sidewalk..."

Mycroft didn't even try to shut him up. Because he had found the spare mobile , with the recorded message from Sherlock in it, in his desk's secret compartment. The only part of the "package" Sherlock left that night that he hadn't recovered. The apology to his family. He had assumed that there wouldn't be one. But his heart told him,if there was, this would be it.

"Oh? Am I being a distraction? Go ahead, play it, I can't wait to hear what he said..."

Mycroft sighed, and pressed the button...

~Just then, Sherlock realized John had fallen asleep again on the kitchen floor. Weightless as he was, all objects about him were now effortless to move, or move through. He lifted his friend up, and returned him to his bed. He could hear Jim's devilish taunting far away in the night, and knew it was time to intervene...~~~~

~~~~ "Oooooohhhh, this is good!" Jim cackled.

Mycroft closed his eyes, and clutched the mobile to his lips.

_Mycroft, it's Sherlock...The Prodigal Son...Listen,I'm going to have to make this brief, seeing as I don't have much time left. Tonight's the night, the one you knew would always come, brother mine._

_But ,knowing you, you won't think this call is coming. Because you knew me. And so you know that I,simply, WASN'T a good man. I wasn't a hero, either. What I am is fresh out of time, and options, so I must do what I must do, as the old saying goes..._

_But,it would be morally wrong, (and regardless of what people may have said, I actually do have a sense of morality) to leave without an apology,or atleast a goodbye._

_But, since you know the truth, it is also morally wrong to lie, and I'm actually not sorry that I am going through with this,because it is absolutely neccesary. I AM sorry though, that, it will hurt you, and Dad and Mum._

_Also, it must be said. Caring may not be an advantage, and may not be my strongest suit, but Mycroft, I care...I really do care..._

_I actually...(_his little brothers voice was breaking. Mycroft swallowed, feeling he might faint before this was over) _I...uh...I love you all...Yes, even you ...Myc..._

_So, this...this isn't an apology for my actions. I've already explained my reasons, I won't beg to be justified, I cannot..._

_This is simply goodbye..._

_Take care of them, would you? Would you do that for me, even though we never got along so well, Myc?..._

_And...just know...about what you've done...I forgive you...So, just...don't..._

_And for God's sake lay off the sweets! You'll be as big as a walrus before your bereavement leave is up!..._

_Well...that's all the time...I have...(_Mycroft heard him drawing a breath, for the very last time...)

_Goodbye..._

The recording stopped.

Jim jeered, "The only thing he asked you to do for him was look after what few friends he had..And you can't even do that."

Mycroft closed his eyes, and slipped a few more pills in his mouth. Wanted to be very high, so as not to feel a thing. Drew out his pistol...

"Forgive me, Sherlock..." he whispered, raising the weapon to his head...

"Hypocrite." Sherlock said form somewhere across the room.

Mycroft froze, not believing his ears...

"If I were the one getting high in here...OH GOD! Never would hear the end of it..." he laughed, only teasing,in the way only Sherlock would.

"That's only because you never could behave, brother dear."Mycroft gasped, feeling a smile spread over his lips, and tears start in the eyes of the little brother could evoke them, he realized.

"Well, I wasn't a good man...You know that..."

"No..."Mycroft lowered the gun, and turned around." No, you weren't a good man..."

There stood Sherlock. Mycroft's near-the-end mind might be playing tricks, but there he stood. In that ridiculous coat of his, flapping in a breeze ,apparently wafting in from the world where he had gone.

In the room also sat Jim Moriarty, and he had shrunk against the wall when Sherlock had come in. Cold, calculating, and dark, tall and looming like the coming night...the very Angel of Death, come to get Jim, and himself ,too, make him pay for what he'd done...Mycroft assumed.

"You...were a GREAT man."

Sherlock took another step forward."Do you mind putting that infernal thing down?" he asked, gesturing to the gun. Mycroft obeyed, laying it on the table.

"Whatever you are going to do to me, I deserve it." Mycroft said, voice cold, keeping up the Ice-man persona to the end.

Sherlock smiled ,greedily, "Oh, I know.." he said.

Then he passed through the room like smoke, slowly, menacingly, dramatically, gathering darkness and shape, and eyes even beginning to take on a torch-light from whatever corner of Eternity he had just stepped out of._ Drag this out,Sherlock...Always a flare for theatrics..._Mycroft thought, and ,despite his icey mask, feeling himself begin to thaw ,and wince, and even squirm under his brother's burning.

Sherlock stopped a foot in front of him, right as Mycroft was on the verge of a yelp, of all things, and gave him one of his cheeky-oh-God-make-me-wanna-throttle-you-impossibly-charming-mischievous-baby-brother smiles.

Laughed,voice rolling like the calm and far -off thunder of God's-spring-cleaning rain. Shook his head, brows rippling in one tiny expression that silently said _OhMyGOD!you-are-so-unbelievably-STUPID!_

Reached and hugged him, with all his strength.

Mycroft flinched like he'd been scalded, though Sherlock was freezing. Oh , so deathly cold. Like he'd left the door of the After-life open behind him, and all the cold blowing in.

"What are you doing?"

"Embracing you. Unconditonally forgiving you. Helping you, at last,deal with the Devil's Little Joker..."

Mycroft was shaking, "Don't act like it's so painful. I'll let you go in a moment; we have work to do."

Not having to be told again, Mycroft clung to Sherlock for dear life...For his dear life, departed from him, for a moment allowed to return ,in form only, to grant his last grace.

"I'm sorry...Sherlock...I truly am..."

"I forgive you, Mycroft. And...can I be forgiven, too, maybe?"

"Of course..."

"How are Mum and Dad?"

"Shattered but carrying on..."

Sherlock's turn to shake. "Give them my love?"

"Of course..."

"Thanks...Now!"

_Always back to business with you,_ Mycroft laughed to himself.

Sherlock turned to Jim, kneeling in front of him like he were a naughty child in pre-K. Smiled wickedly...

"One last little favor to ask of the consulting Devil,and then you can go back to rotting in chains..."


	11. Chapter 11 And Justice For All

**Chapter 11: And Justice For All~**

About sunrise, John Watson woke up in his own bed. Drew a deep breath, as the light of the morning was slightly obstructed from his view, by a shape he knew all too well.

Sherlock had climbed up on the bed, and was leaning over him, studying him intently.

"What time is it?"John asked, rubbing his eyes with his palms.

"Time to seek justice..."Sherlock smiled, showing all his teeth.

"Oh, well look who woke up on the right side of a plan." John laughed, and sat up, eager to follow wherever he was lead.

"And guess who woke up on the wrong side of the law." Mycroft gasped. Jim was kneeling at his feet, in a weird straight-jacket-leash contraption thing.

John laughed, and Jim shot him a look.

"And guess who woke up on the right side of Eternity to pull this off!" Sherlock laughed, clapping his hands on his thighs, ready to begin.

He hauled John out of the bed ,with ease, and threw his shoes at him...

"And guess who's going to wake up on the right side of the newscast for once, eh, Jimmy?" Sherlock asked,brightly.

"The city of London?" John guessed, hopefully.

"The One and Only!" Sherlock laughed,taking two fist- fulls of his hair, and spinning on his heels.

"Extra ,extra, read all about it!" he howled, charging out of the apartment,and down the stairs.

"Sherlock! Where you off to so early?" Mrs. Hudson cried, giggling.

He gracefully bowed over the edge of the bannister, took her by both sides of her aging face, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Off to sieze the day ,of course! Take care, Mrs. Hudson."

He was out the door, followed swiftly by John, and Mycroft, and Jim on his leash, running indignantly on all fours, like a chihuahua in booties.

"Oh, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson gasped,laying a hand on her cheek, charmed. Only then did she realize...

"Sherlock?" she gasped, throat gone tight...

"Dear me,...I think I need some tea..." she blinked, eyes aching, but smiling sadly at the clearness of the vision, and went to make a cup, and read the morning paper.

A few moments later, as she unfolded said paper,she shouted, "Oh these bloody reader's lenses! The letters are all swirling!"

The headlines suddenly were changing,

**THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF JAMES MORIARTY**

_Secrets beyond the grave..._

"What...on earth?"

~~~~~ "Extra, Extra, read all about it!" John shouted, laughing merrily, as he tossed newspapers everywhere.

"And just like that you can change the words in them to being the truth they need to hear, using your mind palace?"

"Yup."(emphasis on the final "p") John shifted ,in the basket.

Yes, John was riding in the basket, like he were E.T., or some such, and Sherlock was peddling ,madly, sometimes hovering over trolley cars and buldings, the bike able to float just like in the old sci-fi flick.

Meanwhile, Jim was bounding along ,like a hound on the rabbits tail, crying, "If you read it in the paper, than it must be true."

"Remind me what he's hear for again?"

"He's hear to witness the official end of his crime legacy, via the exposing of all of his criminal deeds, through the cases I solved, and the ones he thought nobody would ever know about. This is his unfinished business,his penance. A cross-refrenced confession. And his loping along like the scene in Disney's Lion King is just for laughs, really."

"Ok, well it certainly is doing that. And what's Mycroft here for?"

"Them."

Paparazzi and news-reporters were bombarding Mycroft as he stood at a newstand, welcoming the crush of human tide.

"He will take the credit for the last minute headline changes, and the confessions, as explaining to the civilians that ,the Ghost-of-Rooftops-Past, sabotaged their breakfast gossip readings, is too hard too attempt."

"Will you make any attempt to explain the man riding in the basket of a self-propelling bicycle?"

"No, we'll let Mycroft do it."

"Sherlock..."John almost heaved, he was laughing so hard.

Suddenly, they passed Greg Lestrade on the sidewalk, holding a morning coffee and a newspaper. He looked up ,astonished. For whatever reason fate had deemed it fit, he could see them. BOTH of them. And they just happened to catch his eye, too.

"I KNEW IT!" Greg shouted, smiling, holding his newspaper over his head, "I KNEW ALL ALONG,SHERLOCK HOLMES WAS A GREAT MAN!"

"INDEED HE WAS!"John shouted back, and "dinged" the bicycle bell about 15 times for emphasis.

They skidded past Sally Donovan, who for some reason could see them both,as well. She turned the color of an ash-tray. Sherlock blew her a kiss.

"That was mean..."John chided,laughingly.

"That was justice, which is what we're getting, right?"

The two of them looked back, just in time to see her swoon, and land right in Anderson's arms. His jaw dropped, and he choked on a fly.

The two of them were suddenly causing the bike to flounder and sway ,like a ship in a maelstrom, they cracked up so hard.

They almost didn't notice the huge display of fresh- cut flowers, they were careening towards.

Until they crashed through it, and fate had handed John a huge boquet of cherry blossoms.

"Mary's favorite."Sherlock laughed.

"You did that on purpose..."

"Problem?"

"Run us by the Garden of the Stones, then? I have a date."

"Of course..."

They left London in a buzzing, flash of lights,camera, action, and drama.

The news-reporter ,Kitty,was now being swarmed by fellow journalists, like vultures, wanting to know whatever she knew, wanting truth. She looked up,as Sherlock wheeled past, heading for the graveyard.

He smiled, and her soul was chilled to the core as he said into her mind,

_The Day of Reckoning has come at last...How does it feel now that you know you were a piece in their games? Don't be shy, Kitty,...Now there's justice for all...My work here is done..._


	12. Chapter 12 Will You Haunt Me?

**Chapter 12: Will You Haunt Me?**

She knew they were coming; she didn't even turn around.

John was breathless, eyes held captive by the vision of her flowing white bridal gown. She had put it back on, if just for today. He was so enchanted, he didn't even feel it when Sherlock got off the bike, and dumped him out of the basket.

"I'll see you later..." he muttered, trying to ride off into the sunrise.

"No...No, I want you to stay..." John whispered,over his shoulder. Sherlock's cool shadow froze in place, icey eyes following him as he walked towards his very own "sleeping beauty", who, by the way, was standing under the graveyard's largest old oak, the watchman of God, shepherd of stones and the sleeping dead. Like an old preacher, that tree. The witness of the vows...

" You'd think I'd stumbled right through the Gates of Heaven...Tell me, angel, how do I get to God's house?" John teased.

A laugh that crackled like fire, and Mary turned...Her skirts swirled like candle light, and doves took flight in her wake, passing over Sherlock where he stood in the silent distance, like a foam-crowned wave of the Seas of Eternity.

John held up the flowers. Her hands flew to her mouth. "John?"

"Mary...you are the only one!" he gasped,almost desperately,and sank to his knees, holding up the flowers. "You will always be...the only one..."

Mary smiled, and John bowed his head , wondering for a moment, for some silly reason, if she would want him now, after his soul shattered ,like a reflection in a mirror, when Sherlock brought his world crashing down around him, in streams of scarlet tears, running from his skull. But he held up the flowers, anyway.

" I ... I know."Mary said sadly,and knelt in front of him. And parted the flowers like God parts the seas, youthen blue eyes batting lashes at him through her spring-like veil,nose buried in the fragrance, waiting for him to peer through them and see her. He slowly lifted his head. There she was, waiting...Always waiting...

"But I want you to be happy, and whole, and well ,John. You still have a life, and I don't want you to waist it. Not after how much it cost..." she tried not to let her eyes, nor John's attention, float to Sherlock in the background, tried not to wake either of them up to the ever-present pain, "You know how much it cost for you to be alive today..."

He nodded,"And I also know that trying to replace you...trying to move on after..." he swallowed, not wanting to say _his_ name, still feeling the weight of the ice blue-green eyes on the back of his head.

"It will never bring me will peace. It will ,really, only be a waste ,trying to live a lie. I know how to spend my life now...I've decided..." he smiled broadley , and Mary laughed,the flowers wreathing his face like a pinkish-reddish-white beard. "To carry on Sherlock's work...If he will let me...To help bring to justice the people who caused my pain, not out of revenge, but to keep somebody else from falling off the same edge of the world ,that we did..."

"Oh, but how will you do that? Sherlock, he was...uhmmm...the only one of his kind..." John smiled...

"He still is...as far as I can see..."

He turned to Sherlock, who drew back a bit...

"Are you...do you...you want me to stay?" he asked, confused.

John turned back to Mary, " You both can transcend ,Heaven, Hell and the World now right?"

"Well, yes..."

"So you can go wherever you want, free of any mortal coils and veils?"

"What is he suggetsing,Mary?"

"Mary...will you...haunt me? Will you be willing to stay by my side, until death allows me to leave with you? Will you...will you have me, allow me to love you, as the only one? Is Mary Watson a good enough name for you? Will you be it, my princess,my Sleeping Beauty, till God choses to wake all the righteous dead again, at the end of the world? "

"Yes, oh God, yes." They sealed the deal with a kiss, and then John started sneezing; they momentarily forgot they were leaning over flowers.

Then John turned around, "What do you say, Sherlock?Would you like to come back to haunt me, hang around Baker Street,give me the answers to Lestrade's cases, and be my best man?"

Sherlock wasn't as ready as Mary had been. His face was scrunched in a pained expression,neither John nor the one-and-only Misses Watson, ever imagined they would see on his face.

"After what I did to you...?After the kind of man I was...?You want me to come back to haunt you? Do you really know what you are asking for? The whole bloody point of my coming back was to fix everything I'd broke, so you could finally be happy ,and forget about me..."

John was walking towards him now..."For God's sake,John..." Sherlock stumbled backwards..."What are you thinking? I was NOT a good man,...You could've had so much better. With your name cleared up of any ties to me , you could have a life, a good one...One worth a war-hero...You still could help people...Do things that actually matter...Not like me..."

"Sherlock..." When Sherlock tried to disappear, or run for the bike, or do something, John had run to him, and pinned him to the ground. "Listen..."

"You aren't making any sense!" Sherlock whined, John's knee in his chest.

"Then shut up and listen!" John cried, and took him by his chin..."I didn't ask for you to fix it...I asked you to come back. Just one more miracle, just come back...And now look at you..."

Sherlock looked up confused..."You heard me...and you came. You're back, in a sense. Not dead, in a sense. Still with me...It took a while to process, but the point is... I can see you. I can see you, and hear you, and feel you close...That's all that I wanted. To be honest, I could never be happier. You are here with me, but in such a way as you can never be harmed by anyone again. You can never be targeted by the press again. You can never be put into nightmare situations , like the ones in my Mind Palace, where you are forced to take drastic measures for my own safety, again.I didn't ask you to be a good man, Sherlock. I didn't want you to be the white knight, the hero. You were always more like the Death Angel, ready to do what needed to be done, and not what was in the Knight's Code..."

Suddenly, Molly and Greg ,stumbled into the graveyard, and stopped short, watching this exchange. Mycroft too, slowly stole into the graveyard,smiling broadley.

"The world will always need a Deathly Angel, before they need a White Knight...And even if there were whole armies full of 'em at my command, I'd choose you any day. You may have never really gotten it, how people cared about you...what people expect. But you always gave them what they needed before what they wanted...you always understood what was the most rational, what was best for them...Sherlock, you are best for me, don't you see that? My best man,...and I still need you...So, will you stay? Will you help me carry on the Work...till the end?"

Molly stepped forward, and held up their old notes, "Remember, what you said? About how we could change the world?"she asked.

Sherlock sat up, and looked from Molly,to John, and back to Molly..."But.."

Molly smiled, "Sherlock, you were really special to me, and I know you will never understand those kind of sentiments...But, that's ok. Whether or not we felt the same about each other, one things certain. You were my friend, probably my very best friend. You made me believe that I counted, that I could do the things you said needed to be done. I believe now that I can...

But not without you..."

Sherlock looked at John, confused. And then Lestrade piped up, "And ,mate, I have no idea how you've managed to make your way back to haunting us,but I can tell you the Yard is as lost as a hell-bound soul without you..."

"The world sometimes could use less good men..."Mycroft piped up, " A handful of sinners, willing to be a knife in the hand of justice, a scalpel to remove the ties of subtle bondage, not glorious, but neccesary. We need less heroes,and white knights, and politicians. We need more sociopaths, willing to step out of the masses,and be the One Under Fire,the One Misunderstood, willing to do what is right before what people see as 'good'. Willing to Fall...So, really, Sherlock...we all still need you...Otherwise, London, and the world with it, will be the one to fall."

"And who's going to look after my John, huh? I mean I can only do so much baby-sitting." Mary teased.

"Maybe not a good man. But my best man. What do you say?" John asked. Molly fanned her notes. Greg held up a case file. Mycroft offered him a cigarette ,muttering at a glare from Mary "It's not like my usual bribe can hurt him now!" Sherlock looked at all of them,one after the other, but settled on John.

"But why?"

John laughed, "That's the problem of being the world's only anything...The world will definately not be able to replace it, and I certainly cannot find another you. What do you say?"

Sherlock was silent,for a long time,thinking...

"Ok..." he whispered, at last.

"Yes!"John laughed, pullling him to his feet.

And the others rushed him all at once,

"One at a time, one at a time, there's only one of me ,remember?!"


	13. Epilouge

**Epilouge~**

So it was, that Sherlock moved back into 221B Baker Street, and since the place was now considered to be haunted, no body ever came to enquire about renting the spare room . Which was fine by John,although Sherlock really didn't need his bed anymore.

Mrs. Hudson adapted to the idea of Sherlock haunting them rather quickly. She still required him to "pay the rent", but seeing as he couldn't be given money anymore without it looking like Lestrade was stealing from the Yard,(he went back to being the world's only consulting detective, and was Molly's lab assistant, when they didn't have a case. ((She had become a pharmaceutical chemist instead of a pathologist)) ) he paid in other ways. Such as, cleaning the house, especially cleaning under furniture, regularly(which being things were weightless to him, he could lift the setee and vacuum under it with John still sitting on it, so it really wasn't a problem)escorting Mrs. Hudson on her outings, and over all being more social than he had been ,in life, with them.

And seeing as he no longer had the irritance of people, being that only the people whom he cared about, who cared about him, could see him(after he on-purposed frightened Anderson,Sally,and Kitty, that is), he didn't mind this at all. He and Mycroft even began to get along, being that Sherlock couldn't get himself into any trouble for Mycroft to have to meddle in , anymore, and therefore he did not meddle nor treat him like a child. And sometimes, Sherlock would even have guests from the other world. Of course, Mary was always coming around, as she and John were "dating" now, from across the distance of Eternity. But sometimes, Sherlock's friends of old would show around. One night, to John's suprise, Caroline Blackwood,from uni, came knocking, and had in tow several bags of snacks from the Tesco's dumpster, and behind her were the other friends Sherlock had confided to John had long ago been murdered (the reader would have to have read "Study in Emptiness" to understand, but yes, this is that Caroline, the one that's skull sat on the mantle until Sherlock got justice for her, along with all the rest.) Sherlock ushered them in, suprisingly friendly, and youthfull all of the sudden,making John wonder if there was a time in his past, when he was less bitter, because he hadn't been brushed aside by so many people yet. Why they had treated a person that ,despite his eccentric and coarse-spoken nature, only wished to help them, in such a way, was beyond John,anyhow.

"Only a day out- of- date, and thrown out!" Caroline chirped, meaning the food, annoyed.

"People are so stupid!" Sherlock gasped, "Here ,set them on the table, next to my experiment,nothing too disgusting this time...Say, aren't the boys from John's unit ,the ones he lost, coming too?And oh?!"

Sherlock dropped to his knees, suddenly acting like a 10 -year-old version of himself, "REDBEARD! Hallo, boy!"

The dog came trotting to him,knocked him on his back, and started wildly licking his played with his ears..."It's so good to see you! And maybe Mrs. Hudson will let me keep you here, since your hair can't really get into the carpet ,and you won't really make any messes..."He went on talking to the dog,ignoring the tramp of boots on the stairs. John sat bolt upright, choked on his tea, and leaped to his feet, knocking the table over.

Old friends lost in Afghanistan, atleast 10 in all, stopped at a crisp attention standing over the young man and his dog, sprawled on the floor, laughing (and ,the other, by his respective species, barking) like fools.

John swallowed, and saluted his friends then too, and then Sherlock sat up still laughing and looked up at the soliders. Leaped to his feet, dusted himself off, "Gentlemen, hello! Do make yourselves at home!"he cried, shaking each man's hand in turn.

Even some of the people they'd helped after life, or had attempted to help in the end, on their cases, showed up for this unexpected party. The woman with the pink suitcase that Anderson had thought was German,Henry's dad, and Soo Lin Yao , to name a few. Mary came in with a cake with flaming candles. And dragging Jim in on his leash, now truthfully wearing chihuahua -style booties. Redbeard growled at him, and Sherlock pointed and whispered, "Fetch!" At which, Jim meowed like an annoyed tabby- cat, and Redbeard began to chase him about the room.

"HAPPY UN-BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!" Mary cried. The soldiers turned, "Oi, miss! Let's help you with that!" They cried, helping her guide it into the kitchen. Sherlock scrambled to clear his experiment away. Then stumbled into the mostly empty living-room where John stood stairing at them all, mouth gaping. Just then Molly,Mycroft, and Greg slipped in, eyes as wide as harvest -moons.

"Is it...ok if Redbeard stays?" Sherlock asked, wincing, afraid he'd say no. John smiled,

"Are you going to leave if I say no?" he teased.

The dog came and sat at Sherlock's feet, and as if drawn by a magnet, Sherlock's hand came to rest on his head. Redbeard, whined, and pawed at John's leg, begging him to love him as much as his master did.

"Alright! You can stay!"John gasped, kneeling in front of the dog, and petting him. Till deep-dark-dog eyes, trained to more-than-doggish observance by his young master, took off after Jim as he found a hiding place , somewhere near their bookcase. John leaped up, accidently tripping over the dog, and nearly falling, caught in Sherlock's trusting arms. He smiled. John smiled back.

"Think you're going to live "happily ever-after- to -the- end- of- your- days" ...like people do?"Sherlock asked.

John smiled, and looked around ,at all their friends, living and passed on, suddenly realizing heaven wasn't so far away, after all.

Looked back into the eyes of the best of all of them. Realized he was in Sherlock's arms, but for the first time since he'd come back to haunt him, he wasn't cold. Actually he was warm, like the sun shining through a window, still seperated in a way, but at the same time so close.

"No, Sherlock, I think I will be happy for MUCH longer than that!" he laughed, gently gripping him from behind his neck, and they both started laughing,and broke their embrace, John drawing a hand across his chest, indicating he wanted him to turn around and follow him into the kitchen, where everyone was now chattering like magpies. As happy, at last, and forever,as a flock of birds of the same feather would be, indeed, had they finally found a place to roost ,where winter never came.

~The End~


End file.
